Regime of truth

From Geography

Latest revision as of 20:23, 24 October 2012

Michel Foucault prefers not to use the term truth itself but "Regimes of Truth". In his historical investigations he found truth to be something that was itself a part of, or embedded within, a given power structure. Truth for Foucault is also something that shifts through various episteme throughout history (Foucault, 1970). This challenges the idea that thruth is Foucault wielded by people by way of "episodic" or "sovereign" acts of domination, instaed he thinks of it as dispersed and pervasive (Gaventa, 2003).

“’Truth’ is linked in a circular relation with systems of power which produce and sustain it, and to effects of power which it induces and which extend it. A ‘regime of truth’”(Foucalt, 1980, p. 133).

Foucault identifies five thraits in the creation of thruth in the western society: the centering of truth on scientific discourse, accountability of truth to economic and political forces, the "diffusion and consumption" of truth via societal apparatuses, the control of the distribution of truth by "political and economic apparatuses and issue of a whole political debate and social confrontation. Because of these traiths, he sees that the majority is controlled by the political and economic forces of society. This leads up to his vision that intellectual with political problems must not be seen in terms of "science" and "ideology" but in terms of "truth"and "power" (Durrant, 2010).

We can conclude that Foucault advises not to speak about truth but about regimes of truth when there is spoken of an objective quality. This has to do with the different discourses about what is true and why this is true. Objectivity is more subjective than most people realise.

Example

An example of the Regime of truth is partly mentioned above. The Regime of truth shows that every truth is actually in a particular way subjective, because of its creation by human, which in his way is subjective by nature. Looking at the current situation of the euro-crisis the economic situation is very disturbing for particular countries. A picture is created of the disturbing events that will occur when the euro should fall. However no one knows if this is truthfull and if it will actually happen, but it is believed by some and considered as the truth. But politics and/or companies could have made this truth for various reasons, so this indicates that eventually truth can always be used in a subjective way. The use of the truth determines which believe is told. So there can be said that the Regime of truth to geography is influental. Because of that the truth is automatically believed by many it can be a powerful tool that affects and be part of a geography.

References

• Durrant, D. (2010). Regime of truth. Found 14 september 2011, at http://ddrrnt.amplify.com/2010/08/15/regime-of-truth-michel-foucault-on-truth-and-power/
• Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon.
• Gaventa, J. (2003). Foucault: power is everywhere. Found 14 september 2011, at http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/

Contributors

• page created by --JensLubben 09:45, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
• Edited by --JornJoosten 18:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC) & Loek Freulich

Edited by Jan-Peter Hoste 4026349 on October 24 2012

• Page enhanced by Paul van den Hogen--PaulHogen--PaulHogen 22:22, 24 October 2012 (CEST)